The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel

by Don Marquis

  twere more like reason if they said such words

  unto their bosses than tear the hair

  and beat the head and blame luck

  for their losses

  NOVEMBER 19

  Prudence

  NO, ARCHY... AGATE, TO REBUKE YOUR INCREASING PRIDE

  dear boss i have worked

  pretty hard over the

  following poem not only to

  make it rhyme but

  also butting it out on the

  typewriter with my head one

  letter at a time so wont you please

  just this once set it in

  large type i get awfully tired of

  butting out poems and seeing

  them always printed in

  nonpareil let me have brevier

  just this once boss

  Prudence

  i do not think a prudent one

  will ever aim too high

  a cockroach seldom whips a dog

  and seldom should he try

  and should a locust take a vow

  to eat a pyramid

  he likely would wear out his teeth

  before he ever did

  i do not think the prudent one

  hastes to initiate

  a sequence of events which he

  lacks power to terminate

  for should i kick the woolworth tower

  so hard i laid it low

  it probably might injure me

  if it fell on my toe

  i do not think the prudent one

  will be inclined to boast

  lest circumstances unforseen

  should get him goat and ghost

  for should i tell my friends i d drink

  the hudson river dry

  a tidal wave might come and turn

  my statements to a lie

  NOVEMBER 23

  Too Romantic to Work

  well boss mehitabel the cat

  has turned up again after a long

  absence she declines

  to explain her movements but she

  drops out dark hints of a

  most melodramatic nature ups and downs

  archy she says always ups and downs

  that is what my life has

  been one day lapping

  up the cream de la cream and the

  next skirmishing for

  fish heads in an alley but

  toujours gai archy toujours gai no

  matter how the luck broke i have had a

  most romantic life archy talk

  about reincarnation and transmigration

  archy why i could tell you things of who

  i used to be archy that would make

  your eyes stick out like a snails one

  incarnation queening it with a tarara on

  my bean as cleopatra archy and

  the next being abducted as a poor

  working girl but toujours gai archy toujours

  gai and finally my soul has migrated to

  the body of a cat and not even a persian or

  a maltese at that but where have you been

  lately mehitabel i asked her never mind

  archy she says dont ask no questions

  and i will tell no lies all i

  got to say to keep away

  from the movies have you been in the

  movies mehitabel i asked her never mind

  archy she says never mind all i got to

  say is keep away from those

  movie camps theres some mighty

  nice people and animals connected with them

  and then again theres some that aint i

  say nothing against anybody archy i am

  used to ups and downs no matter

  how luck breaks its toujours gai

  with me all i got to say

  archy is that sometimes a cat

  comes along that is a perfect gentleman and

  then again some of the slickest furred ones

  aint if i was a cat that was the

  particular pet of a movie star archy and

  slept on a silk cushion and had

  white chinese rats especially

  imported for my meals i would try to live

  up to all that luxury and be a

  gentleman in word and deed mehitabel i said

  have you had another unfortunate romance i am

  making no complaint against any

  one archy she says wottell archy wottell even

  if the breaks is bad my motto is toujours gai

  but to slip out nights and sing and frolic

  under the moon with a lady and then cut her

  dead in the day time before your rich

  friends and see her batted out of a studio

  with a broom without raising a paw for her

  aint what i call being a

  gentleman archy and i am

  a lady archy and i know a gentleman when

  i meet one but wottell archy wottell toujours

  gai is the word never say die

  archy its the cheerful heart that wins all i

  got to say is that if i ever get that

  fluffy haired slob down on the

  water front when some of my gang

  is around he will wish he had

  watched his step i aint vindictive archy i

  dont hold grudges no lady does but i

  got friends archy that maybe would take it

  up for me theres a black cat with one ear

  sliced off lives down around old slip is a

  good pal of mine i wouldnt want to

  see trouble start archy no real lady

  wants a fight to start over her but

  sometimes she cant hold her friends back

  all i got to say is that boob with his silver

  bells around his neck better sidestep old slip

  well archy lets not talk any more about my troubles

  does the boss ever leave any pieces of sandwich

  in the waste paper basket any more honest

  archy i would will myself to a furrier for a

  pair of oysters i could even she says eat you

  archy she said it like a joke but there

  was a kind of a pondering look in her eyes

  so i just crawled into the inside of

  your typewriter behind the wires it

  seemed safer let her hustle for a

  mouse if she is as hungry as all that

  but i am afraid she never will she

  is too romantic to work

  NOVEMBER 27

  I Knew a Ghost

  the longer i live the more i

  realize that everything is

  relative even morality is

  relative things you would not do

  sometimes you would do other

  times for instance i would not consider

  it honorable in me as a

  righteous cockroach to crawl into a

  near sighted man s soup that

  man would not have a sporting chance but

  with a man with ordinarily good eye

  sight i should say it was

  up to him to watch his soup himself and

  yet if i was very tired and hungry

  i would crawl into even a near

  sighted man s soup knowing all the

  time it was wrong and my necessity would

  keep me from reproaching myself too

  bitterly afterwards you can

  not make any hard and fast rule

  concerning the morality of crawling into

  soup nor anything else a certain

  alloy of expediency improves the

  gold of morality and makes

  it wear all the longer consider a

  ghost if i were a ghost i

  would not haunt ordinary people but i

  would have all the fun i wanted to with

  spiritualists for spiritualists are

  awful nuisances
to ghosts i knew a

  ghost by the name of clarence one

  time who hated spiritualists with a

  great hatred you see said clarence they

  give me no rest they have got my

  number once one of those psychics gets a

  ghost s number so he has to come

  when he is called they work him till

  the astral sweat stands out in beads

  on his spectral brow they seem to think

  said clarence that all a spook has to do

  is to stick around waiting to dash in

  with a message as to whether mrs millionbucks

  pet pom has pneumonia or only wheezes

  because he has been eating too many

  squabs clarence was quite

  bitter about it but wait he says till

  the fat medium with the red nose

  that has my number

  passes over and i can get my

  clutches on him on equal terms there s

  going to be some initiation beside

  the styx several of the boys are

  sore on him a plump chance i have

  don t i to improve myself and pass on

  to another star with that medium

  yanking me into somebody s parlor to

  blow through one of these little tin

  trumpets any time of the day or night

  honest archy he says i hate the sight of a

  ouija board would it be moral he

  says to give that goof a bum tip on the

  stock market life ain t worth

  dying he says if you ve got to fag

  for some chinless chump of a psychic

  nor death ain t worth living

  through would it be moral in me to

  queer that simp with his

  little circle by saying he s got an

  anonymous diamond brooch in his pocket

  and that his trances are rapidly developing

  his kleptomania no clarence i said it

  wouldn t be moral but it

  might be expedient there s a ghost

  around here i have been trying to get

  acquainted with but he is shy i think he is

  probably afraid of cockroaches

  DECEMBER 3

  That Ghost That Loafs

  well boss i have

  finally succeeded in getting into

  touch with that

  ghost that loafs around here he

  is a sort of a tired out

  timid kind of a ghost and

  says he wants it understood that he

  is doing no haunting he hangs

  around your office nights because it is

  quiet he says and he hopes you

  wont be harsh with him and

  put him out he is hiding from a

  bunch of spiritualists he

  says one medium in particular who

  has been working him nearly to

  distraction he told me some of

  his experiences with

  spiritualists and it is a

  most pathetic tale which i

  will communicate to

  you later

  DECEMBER 8

  Superior

  the high cost of

  living isn t so bad if you

  dont have to pay for it i met

  a flea the other day who

  was grinning all over

  himself why so merry why so

  merry little bolshevik i asked him

  i have just come from a swell

  dog show he said i have

  been lunching off a dog that was

  worth at least one hundred

  dollars a pound you should be

  ashamed to brag about it i said with so

  many insects and humans on

  short rations in the world today the

  public be damned he said i

  take my own where i find it those are

  bold words i told him i am a bold

  person he said and bold words are

  fitting for me it was

  only last thursday that i marched

  bravely into the zoo

  and bit a lion what did he do i asked

  he lay there and took it said

  the flea what else could he do he knew i

  had his number and it was

  little use to struggle some day i said

  even you will be conquered terrible as

  you are who will do it he

  said the mastodons are all dead and i

  am not afraid of any mere

  elephant i asked him how about a microbe and

  he turned pale as he thought it

  over there is always some

  little thing that is too

  big for us every

  goliath has his david and so on ad finitum

  but what said the flea is the

  terror of the smallest microbe of all

  he i said is afraid of a vacuum what is

  there in a vacuum to make one afraid

  said the flea there is nothing in it

  i said and that is what makes one

  afraid to contemplate it a person

  can t think of a place with nothing at

  all in it without going nutty and if he

  tries to think that nothing is

  something after all he gets nuttier you are

  too subtle for me said the

  flea i never took much stock in being

  scared of hypodermic propositions or

  hypothetical injections i am

  going to have dinner off a

  man eating tiger if a vacuum gets

  me i will try and send you word

  before the worst comes to

  the worst some people i told him inhabit

  a vacuum all their lives and

  never know it then he said it don t

  hurt them any no i said it dont but it

  hurts people who have to associate

  with them and with these words

  we parted each feeling

  superior to the other and is not that

  feeling after all one of the great

  desiderata of social intercourse

  DECEMBER 10

  Sad Looking Ghost

  the ghost i was telling you

  about the other day is named emmet and

  he is a tall thin sad looking

  ghost with a long drooping

  nose and a bald retreating forehead he is a

  very timid ghost and

  vanishes quickly at any unexpected

  noise i will tell you the

  truth said emmet i am a bit afraid of

  human beings they are so rough i met one in the

  corridor the other morning about three

  oclock and he threw a heavy book right through

  me later i realized that he must have

  been as much afraid of

  me as i was of him just then mehitabel came in

  and emmet vanished it was five

  minutes before i could coax him to appear

  again i have always been a

  bit afraid of cats said emmet cheer o said

  mehitabel dont look so

  melancholy gay is the word my boy tell me

  the story of your life how

  did you come to be a ghost anyhow emmet

  was quite thoughtful for a moment and

  he got sadder and sadder and then he

  said i will conceal nothing

  from you it was drink

  that did it the story of emmet the

  ghost will be continued in an

  early number

  DECEMBER 21

  Bore His Way Out

  F. W. P. says: “I am informed by one of the military that it takes exactly three days for a flea to bore through an army shirt. It has therefore been found easy to thwart this evil beast’s designs by turning the shirt inside out every day and a half. It
occurs to me that if your cockroach friend, archy, were properly approached he might consent to secure similar statistics on civilian shirts, thereby conferring a great boon on mankind in general.”

  We put the matter up to archy, and in due time received the following communication from that industrious little animal:

  boss i don’t understand

  the idea i am afraid

  why do they turn the

  shirt every day and a half

  why do they not

  keep it unturned

  for three whole days and

  let the poor flea

  bore his way out and

  make his escape

  1918

  JANUARY 28

  Literary Slave No Longer

  you want to know

  where i have been so long well

  i will tell you i

  have been cutting out poetry and

  going to work i have been

  letting literature alone and

  making some money as

  you never paid me anything for

  my literary work i wandered

  into a business college down the

  street a few weeks ago and i

  was fooling around one of the

  typewriters when the

  proprietor said to me if you want to

  make a little money you can

  do it by cleaning those

  machines so he tied a piece of

  cotton onto my stomach and i crawled back

  and forth over the keys

  till i got them cleaned i get

  ten cents a typewriter for the

  work and i am resting my head also i

  find a certain satisfaction in being

  useful of a kind that i

  never felt when i was merely a poet i

  may come back to literature again boss but

  never on the old terms i am

  taking on the typewriters in an

  advertising agency to clean

  next week if i could get three or four

  really industrious cockroaches to

  help me i think i would open a

  shoe shining parlor in a

  modest way i am enclosing a

  dollar which i trust you to hand on

  to the sun tobacco fund hoping

  that you yourself will

  eventually get away from writing and

  go in for something honest i

  am with best wishes but